The Map Room

The business practices of the Ordnance Survey vis-à-vis its private-sector competition are being criticized. Thierry Gregorius’s so-called “hard-hitting analysis” is actually fairly even-handed: criticizing the rather two-faced nature of the OS as both government agency and commercial enterprise, but also pointing out that the OS does not have any clear rules to guide its operations.

What has struck me in many meetings with OS is that you never quite know who you are talking to. Is this OS, the government agency, or OS, the business? They can’t do special deals with you because, as a government agency, they have to treat everyone equally — which is fair enough. But at the same time OS remains at liberty to pursue any commercial opportunity that takes their fancy. There are geospatial companies that have been badly burnt by this, especially aerial imagery folks or online mapping providers who dared to compete with OS’s almighty mapping machine. In many cases, even today, OS is still competing with its own business partners.

For an example, see the Andover Advertiser’s coverage of the complaints of Getmapping CEO Tristram Cary, who’s had to cut jobs in the face of competition from the OS.

The Ordnance Survey Blog has the first of a three-part series that takes a behind-the-scenes look at the OS’s cartography team. The team, says the blog, is “responsible for deriving and maintaining cartographic databases, and providing the finished data for Ordnance Survey national series paper and data products. They do this through the manipulation and enhancement of our core databases. But as well as this ‘core’ work, they work on lots of other projects from specialist maps to innovative work on the effects of colour vision deficiency on mapping.”

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at why OpenStreetMap has been getting attention (and resources) from two large, and very commercial, mapping providers: Bing (Microsoft) and MapQuest (AOL). “For Microsoft and AOL’s MapQuest unit, OpenStreetMap presents an opportunity to build new local services or develop new business models while skirting the costs and terms associated with licensed data from the commercial providers. The two companies are estimated to pay Navteq tens of millions of dollars a year for its map data.” Via OpenGeoData.

This New York Times article examines whether GPS receivers for cars will get pinched between in-dash navigation systems on the one hand and smartphones with navigation apps on the other. Via @gpstracklog.

Previously: TomTom Not Worried by GPS-Equipped Smartphones.

GPS Tracklog reports that GPS receivers from Magellan, Mio and Navman — all owned by MiTAC — are switching from Navteq to Tele Atlas as their map provider. Since TomTom owns Tele Atlas, does that mean that Garmin is the only major manufacturer of car-based GPS navigation devices that still uses Navteq?

In an interview with Reuters, Garmin CFO Kevin Rauckman said sales of Garmin’s mobile phones have been below expectations and that if the situation does not improve within a couple of quarters, Garmin will “have to sit back and evaluate…  •  Continue reading this entry.

In an interesting development, MapQuest has launched a site that combines OpenStreetMap mapping data with its user interface and routing directions. MapQuest Open is limited to the U.K. for the time being (a wise decision considering the state of OSM…  •  Continue reading this entry.

TomTom’s senior vice president of market development, Tom Murray, doesn’t think GPS-equipped smartphones will replace dedicated navigation devices any time soon. “There’s been no market impact on the demand for stand-alone GPS devices,” TomTom Tom says in an interview; he…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Engadget reports Nokia and Yahoo have announced a strategic partnership that includes Yahoo using Nokia’s NAVTEQ for maps and navigation. Of the major online map providers, it’s safe to say that Yahoo has been lagging the furthest behind. Engadget quotes…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Platial is shutting down; the site may go dark as early as tomorrow. Instructions on exporting data hosted by Platial have been posted, but the data will be archived at Geocommons. Di-Ann Eisnor explains: We are retiring the site because…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The hell? Mapperz points to the following item, tucked away in this Grauniad article about the British government’s efforts to reduce its budget deficit: “A total of £16bn will be saved by pressing ahead with the sale of public assets…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Less than two years after entering the North American personal navigation device market, Navigon is calling it quits — they were undercut, says GPS Business News, by competitors selling at less-than-premium prices. Via GPS Tracklog, where Rich has some thoughts…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Buried in the San Francisco Chronicle’s coverage of job cuts at Yahoo is the suggestion that Yahoo may farm out its maps to another company, which is generating a certain amount of reaction in the map blogosphere: All Points Blog,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Truth be told, I’d never heard of the name “GIS Alley” before today, but it refers to the large group of geospatial companies located in and around Fort Collins, Colorado. Here’s a puff piece in the Fort Collins Coloradoan by…  •  Continue reading this entry.

As a preview of his talk at next month’s Where 2.0 conference, Yahoo’s Geo Technologies lead Tyler Bell sits down for a long interview with O’Reilly Media’s James Turner, in which they discuss Yahoo’s behind-the-scenes geo technologies (e.g., geotagging on…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Google Maps surpassed MapQuest over the weekend in terms of monthly visitors according to Hitwise numbers; a couple of other reports had Google beating MapQuest back in January. I guess it depends on the methodology. Via All Points Blog. Previously:…  •  Continue reading this entry.

CNet reports that Microsoft and TomTom have settled their patent suits against one another: “As part of the deal, as TomTom will pay Microsoft for patent protection related to mapping patents and file-management patents that Microsoft claimed were infringed by…  •  Continue reading this entry.

It’s an interview packed with softball questions, but Telematics Update’s interview with Dr. Tyler Bell, who heads the Yahoo Geo Technologies product team, reveals where Yahoo sees itself relative to other mapping providers. Short version: not as an also-ran by…  •  Continue reading this entry.

On GeoCarta, Roger Hart has been following the story of TomTom’s financial difficulties — lower sales, job cuts, and, most recently, the fact that TomTom lost €989 million last quarter, thanks in no small part to the €1.048-billion writedown of…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Edward has a couple of additional data points to add to the Google vs. MapQuest market share question; in addition to the four-point gap Hitwise reported, comScore apparently says that Google beat MapQuest in January; Compete.com reports something similar. Edward…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Hitwise reports that MapQuest continues to hold a small lead over Google Maps, even though it looked like Google would soon overtake it a few months ago. Still, compared to last year, when MapQuest held a 50-to-22 lead over Google,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

MiTAC has completed its purchase of Magellan’s consumer products line, which will continue to exist as a brand separate from MiTAC’s existing Mio line. Previously: Magellan Sells Consumer Products Division to MiTAC….  •  Continue reading this entry.

GPS Tracklog and GPS Review are reporting that Magellan has sold its consumer products division — think the Maestro, RoadMate and Triton — to MiTAC, whose Mio subsidiary also makes consumer GPS products. Curiouser and curiouser. (Apparently Magellan has been…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Independent’s “I Want Your Job” feature features a cartographer — namely, Iain MacDonald of Collins Geo. Swoon at the exciting life of a cartographer: tedious painstaking research! No, seriously: after reading this I want to be a cartographer; keep…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Nokia’s acquisition of NAVTEQ is now complete (previously; via Engadget)….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Off camping for a few days; here are a few links to tide you over: Roger Hart’s very good blog, GeoCarta, has moved to a new address and a new platform. The Sandusky Library Archives Research Center’s map collection is…  •  Continue reading this entry.

From the Times’s career section, an article featuring two people working in the cartography field: Jon Ford, a survey geologist with the British Geological Survey, and Edward Mainwaring, a cartographer with the Ordnance Survey….  •  Continue reading this entry.

TomTom has received the go-ahead from the European Commission for its takeover of Tele Atlas: AP, Bloomberg, Reuters. In a nutshell, the existence of a competitor, Navteq/Nokia, would remove any incentive on the part of the merged TomTom/Tele Atlas to…  •  Continue reading this entry.

All Points Blog has a roundup of the seemingly contradictory news stories about the TomTom-Tele Atlas merger and the European Commission. Previously: EU Formally Objects to TomTom-Tele Atlas Deal; EU Investigates TomTom-Tele Atlas Deal….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Another profile of map publisher (and now GPS maker) DeLorme, this time from the Bangor Daily News’s Bill Graves. DeLorme got its start mapping Maine, so no surprise that the Maine media likes to cover the company’s history: local success…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Nokia-Navteq merger is also the subject of a European Commission probe; the Commission announced Friday that it had “serious doubts” about how the merger would affect competition: Chicago Tribune (via Slashgeo), Reuters (via Engadget). You will recall that the…  •  Continue reading this entry.

In January, Hitwise reported on the relative market shares of the online map sites. MapQuest continued to lead with more than 50 percent of the market, with Google Maps second at 22 percent, and Yahoo and Microsoft trailing. But,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Reuters reports that the European Commission has sent a statement of objections to TomTom over its proposed takeover of Tele Atlas. This is not an outright rejection; TomTom now has until May 5 to offer additional remedies to assuage EU…  •  Continue reading this entry.

There are stock market doubts about the Nokia-Navteq merger, according to a piece in Medill Reports (which is written by graduate journalism students). “According to [Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Yair] Reiner, Nokia has yet to file for antitrust clearance by…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran a story on the digital map “duopoly,” Navteq and Tele Atlas — it starts and finishes like so many local profiles of digital map surveying, but the meat of the article is a…  •  Continue reading this entry.

With Garmin out of the picture, you’d think that TomTom’s proposed takeover of Tele Atlas would be free of further complications, but no: European Union regulators are investigating the deal over competitive concerns; they’re expected to rule by next April….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Garmin has withdrawn its $3.3-billion bid for Tele Atlas, leaving TomTom free to nab the company. Instead, Garmin has struck a deal with Navteq, their current map data supplier, to guarantee access to that data through 2015. Via Engadget. Update:…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Three months after TomTom’s €1.8-billion bid for Tele Atlas, Garmin is making a play for the digital mapping data company, with a $3.3-billion bid of its own — a bid fueled by a concern that Garmin not be forced to…  •  Continue reading this entry.

When it was announced last July that TomTom would acquire Tele Atlas for €1.8 billion, Navteq was widely seen as the next acquisition target. The only question was, by whom. The answer is Nokia, which announced today that it was…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Yesterday’s big news was TomTom’s offer of €1.8 billion for fellow Dutch company Tele Atlas. Not really a surprise, given the growth in business of online maps and navigation devices. If the merger goes through, Tele Atlas will continue to…  •  Continue reading this entry.